


Family Secrets

by mldrgrl



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family Drama, Family Secrets, Pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 09:01:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8884930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mldrgrl/pseuds/mldrgrl
Summary: I never gave much thought to Charlie Scully, but after Home Again, I gave a lot of though to Charlie Scully.





	

She hadn’t seen her younger brother in twenty years.  To this day, she still doesn’t know what happened between her mother and Charlie, but obviously it was something huge.  No one would talk about the rift in the family.  After a few years, it just was what it was.  Of course she’d been intensely curious and concerned about it, but all her attempts to mend whatever had broken had been unsuccessful.  She was grateful that in the last moments of her mother’s life, Charlie had shown up, even if it was over the phone, he was there.

 

She was nervous to see him again.  She’d often wondered how he’d changed, what he was doing with his life, who he was now.  They’d agreed to meet in a coffee shop downtown.  Charlie was passing through DC on his way to North Carolina.  She didn’t know what he was doing there or where he was coming from, only that he’d be in DC, and then he’d be in North Carolina.

 

She recognized him immediately.  His hair might’ve been thinner and the red was now mixed with grey now, both at his temples and in his beard, but he looked like the same Charlie.  She stood and had to blink away the tears that clouded her eyes because the last time she saw him, Melissa was still alive and though one lost sibling can be returned, it reminded her of the one that couldn’t.

 

“Charlie,” she said, hugging him tightly.

 

“You look good, Dana,” he answered, raising his sunglasses up on his head.

 

“So do you.”  She stared at his face with a bit of disbelief that he was real and standing in front of her.  “Do you want to sit?  Catch up?”

 

“Sure.”

 

***********

 

She has to pull over several times on the drive to Mulder’s.  Once to throw up, the other times because she’s crying too hard to see straight.  Just when she thinks it’s over, the sobbing starts again and she’s paralyzed by conflicting emotions.  If Mulder isn’t home, she doesn’t know what she’ll do.

 

She opens the front door without knocking, startling him.  He’s in the kitchen washing dishes.  Music plays somewhere in the room.  He cocks his head in question, holding his wet hands up like he’s not sure what to do with them.  She walks straight into his chest, unable to speak, unable to do anything but put her arms around him and hold on tight.

 

“Scully?” he whispers, hesitating to hug her back so he doesn’t get her wet.

 

“Please,” she chokes and his handprints soak into her back when he touches her.

 

“Tell me what happened.  Are you hurt?”

 

She shakes her head against his chest and squeezes her eyes shut.  She grips the back of his t-shirt with tight fists and cries until she’s lightheaded.  Her nose is clogged, her throat is sore, and her eyes are burning.

 

“Breathe,” Mulder says, briskly rubbing her back.  “Breathe, Scully.”

 

“Mulder,” she squeaks.

 

“What happened?”

 

**********

 

“What have you been doing?” Scully asked her brother.  “Where have you been?”

 

“Costa Rica, mostly,” he said, dipping and lifting the tea bag into and out of the cup of hot water in front of him.  “I’ve only been back in the states for a few months.”

 

“What were you doing in Costa Rica?”

 

“Teaching.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah.”  He shrugged and took a sip of his tea before taking the bag out and placing it on a plate next to the cranberry scone he’d ordered.

 

“Teaching what?”

 

“English.”

 

“I didn’t know you ever had an interest in teaching.”

 

“Well, not really, but once Julia and I split - did Bill tell you Julia and I got divorced?”

 

“Yeah, he did.  I’m sorry.”

 

“Well, it’s been about fifteen years now.  Anyway, I was looking for a change.  My...uh, a friend of mine got me involved in this program and they train you how to teach, you just needed to be bilingual.”

 

“It sounds great.”

 

“Yeah, I didn’t really want to come back, but...Jason got married last year.”

 

“Jason?” Scully raised her brow in surprise.  “That’s impossible, he’s seven.”

 

Charlie chuckled into his tea.  “He’ll be twenty-nine in a few months.  And his wife is expecting.”

 

“Wow.”  Scully shook her head and looked down into the swirl of steam rising from her coffee.  “You’re about to be a grandfather.”

 

“I am.  And before you make any old man jokes, let me remind you you’ve got two years on me, sis.”

 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

 

He finally took a bite of his scone and then brushed the crumbs off the table as he chewed.  “What about you, though?” he asked.  “I heard some things from Bill, but you know how Bill is.”

 

“He tends to put his own unique perspective on things.”

 

Charlie snorted and put down his scone to tap his fist against his chest.  “Unique perspective,” he coughed.  “Dana, don’t make me choke.”

 

Scully smiled without laughing and traced her finger along the edge of her coffee cup.  “He must’ve told you about my son.”

 

“In his ‘unique perspective’ way, he did.  I’d like to hear the real version from you, though, if you want to tell me.”

 

“I could talk for a month and it wouldn’t explain everything.”  She sighed, laid her arms on the table and leaned on her elbows.  “The short version of it is that I couldn’t keep him safe and I did what I had to do to make sure he’d be ok.”

 

Charlie reached over and put his hand on Scully’s wrist, squeezing very lightly.  “I’m sorry, Dana.”

 

“It was difficult.  I waver on whether or not I did the right thing, depending on the day.  I don’t think Mom ever forgave me for it.”

 

Charlie pulled back and his hand slipped away from Scully’s.  He clenched his jaw and tightened his grip on his tea.  “People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.”

 

“What do you mean by that?”

 

“I mean don't let her judgment bother you. She wasn't a saint.”

 

“What happened between you?”

 

Charlie blinked and his brow rose in an expression of surprise.  “Bill didn’t tell you?  Not even with his singular brand of unique perspective?”

 

“No.”

 

“Melissa?”

 

It was Scully’s turn to raise her brow in surprise.  “Melissa knew?”

 

“Dana, I...I thought you knew.”

 

“Knew  _ what _ , Charlie?”

 

**********

 

“Sit down,” Mulder says, trying to lead Scully into the living room to the couch but she just wants to hold on to him and not let go.  She must say it out loud because he tells her he won't let her go, but she needs to sit down.

 

She sits down and he stays beside her, one arm around her back and the other holding her hand.  Tears drop from her chin onto their fingers.  He brushes them away from her knuckles.

 

“What happened?” he asks.

 

“I met with Charlie today.”

 

“You saw your brother?”

 

She nods and disengages her hand from his to rub her eyes.

 

“And it didn't go well,” he states, moving her hands away so he can push away the strands of wet hair stuck to her cheeks.

 

“I know what happened,” she whispers, barely able to make her voice work.  “I know why he stayed away for so long.  Why he didn't come to Mom’s funeral.”

 

“Why?”

 

She shakes her head and her eyes begin to fill again.  How she hasn't dehydrated herself beyond producing tears at this point, she doesn't know.  Mulder seems to sense this and lets go of her to get her a glass of water.  She unconsciously reaches for her necklace and suddenly remembers it isn't there.  Mulder hands her a glass, but all she can do is stare at it.

 

“You don't have to tell me,” he says, rubbing her back as he sits beside her again.

 

“I need to.  I need to tell you.”

 

**********

 

Charlie went so quiet that Scully nervously clutched at the chains at her neck, fiddling with the mysterious quarter charm of her mother’s and her own cross.  He reached across the table and stilled her fingers, moving them to see what she was toying with.  He scraped his teeth over his bottom lip a few times and then glanced up at her.

 

“Did Mom give you this?” he asked.

 

“No.  She was wearing it when they brought her to the hospital.  I don’t...I’d never seen it before.”

 

He nodded a little.  “My father gave it to her.”

 

“This was from Dad?”  She looked down at the quarter, trying to recall a moment that could have been buried somewhere in her memory.

 

Charlie pulled back and wrapped two hands around his mug of tea.  He didn’t look at Scully when he spoke.  His eyes never left the table.  “Not your father,” he said.  “ _ My _ father.”

 

“I’m sorry, what?”

 

“I can’t believe they just...never said anything.”

 

“What the hell did you mean just now?”

 

Charlie sighed.  “You know that Dad was in Okinawa after you were born.”

 

“Yeah, sure.”

 

“Okay, and you know that for the year he was gone, the Navy put mom in base housing in Tacoma?”

 

“Vaguely.”  Scully shrugged.  “Until we got to San Diego I don’t remember where we were.  I thought it was Virginia Beach.”

 

“Virginia Beach was where I was born.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Mom was twenty-five, alone, spending her days with two toddlers and an infant.  Dad was in Japan.  Grandma and Grandpa were across the country.”

 

Scully shook her head.  The pieces of what her brother was trying to tell her were falling into place and she couldn’t believe what he was saying.  “Charlie, this is ridiculous.  Whatever position you think Mom might have been in, she would nev-”

 

“Dana,” he interrupted.  “I’m telling it to you like Mom told me.”

 

“Mom  _ told _ you this?”

 

“Yes.  A few years after Dad died.”

 

“I don’t believe you.”

 

Charlie sighed again and scrubbed his face with both hands.  He moved his tea and his scone aside and rested his arms on the table as he leaned closer to her.  “I didn’t want to believe it either.”  His tone suddenly changed from gentle to hard, pressing through the story without offering her room to interrupt.

 

“She met a man named Frank O’Rourke,” he said.  “In church of all places.  He was only twenty at the time and was on the verge of entering seminary.  Mom was going through a very hard time and was impressed by the counsel he gave for such a young man.  He was wise, he was funny, he was kind, and he was good with kids.

 

“Nothing happened for about six months.  They spent time together.  He was helpful.  One night at a church bazaar, he bought her that necklace.”  Charlie nodded his head towards Scully and his eyes flicked down at her throat.  “They laughed about it because someone was selling a quarter for a dollar, even if it was on a chain, and who would ever buy a quarter for a dollar?  Well, Frank did, because it made her laugh.”

 

Scully tried to picture her mother as a young woman, laughing with a man who wasn’t her father.  She couldn’t.

 

“The affair began shortly after that,” Charlie said.  “And it ended when the Navy transferred the family to Virginia Beach and she found out Dad was coming home.”

 

“Then you can't know for sure. Those weren’t days of paternity tests.  It would’ve been impossible to know if she was back with Dad.  That's just pure speculation.”

 

“She knew she was pregnant before Dad came home.  I was born six months after he came back from Okinawa.”

 

Scully's mouth flopped open and she stuttered on a response, took a deep breath and then tried again.  “She knew this?  She...before Dad even came home?  And he...are you saying that Dad knew you weren’t his son?”

 

“I don’t know.  As far as I know, they never discussed it.  She never told him.  He never asked.  According to her.”

 

Scully rubbed her forehead with shaking fingers.  She felt lightheaded and nauseated.  Of all the things she had been through, this felt like the most unbelievable.  Her gaze meandered the coffee shop, unfocused and untethered.  She wondered if the old man in the corner had been a faithful husband.  She wondered if the young barista behind the counter knew who her father was.  She wondered if the couple holding hands at the table by the window had ever held hands with someone else while that wedding ring that glittered in the sunlight was on her finger.  

 

Charlie squeezed Scully’s wrist and she snapped back into focus.  He took his phone out of his pocket and started thumbing the screen before he turned it around and placed it on the table in front of her.  It was a picture of Charlie and an older couple.  The man had the same ruddy cheeks as Charlie and salty red hair.

 

“This is Frank,” he said.  “This is his wife, Juana.  After Mom told me about him, I started searching.  It didn’t take very long to find him in Costa Rica.  He didn’t know about Mom being pregnant.  Never knew what happened to her after she left Washington.  He didn’t go into the seminary after that, but he became a missionary.  He traveled all over South America before landing in Costa Rica, met Juana, and settled there.  They’ve been married thirty years.  She’s fantastic.  Really accepted me, no questions asked.”

 

Charlie scrolled to the next photo on the screen of him with a young woman with long, dark hair, olive skin, and light eyes that she couldn’t tell if they were blue or green.  The woman was holding a toddler with the same dark hair, but even darker skin.

 

“This is my sister, Angela,” he said.  “And her daughter Mariana.  I have a brother named Seth.  He has two boys, Paco and Diego.”

 

He tried to scroll to another photo, but Scully covered his hand and stopped him.  “This whole time you’ve been down there, living another life with another family and you didn’t say anything?  You just ran away from us and this is who you are now?  Did you change your name?”

 

“What?  No.  I thought at the very least, Bill with his…”  Charlie pulled his phone back and slumped in his chair.

 

“I don’t know what to think right now,” Scully said, sitting back in her own chair.  “Your...family sounds lovely. If this is so wonderful for you, why are you still so angry with Mom?”

 

Charlie frowned.  “Jesus, Dana, you really have no idea.”

 

**********

 

Somewhere in the middle of her rambling, Mulder manages to lay her down on the couch with him.  She speaks in short bursts and gasps for breath in between.  He holds her head to his chest and rubs her back as though he could stop her from hyperventilating by the power of his hand.  It does have a calming affect on her and after awhile she grows sluggish, slurring her words and closing her eyes.

 

“What does it change for you?” he asks.

 

“Everything,” she whispers.

 

“Do you think of him as less than your brother?”

 

“No.”

 

“Do you love your mother any less?”

 

“She’s a completely different person to me now.”

 

“I don’t believe that.”

 

“Mulder, you were in  _ exactly _ the same position my brother was in.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Didn’t it change how you looked at your family?”

 

Mulder is quiet for some time, stroking Scully’s arm and shoulder while he thinks.  She has stopped crying, for now, which is a good thing.  He doesn’t want to set her off again, but there’s more to be said.  A patch of sunlight flutters across his eyes through the window as a cloud moves by and he turns his head away and presses his chin to the top of Scully’s head.

 

“I didn’t have much of a family to begin with,” he says.  “It might be the same situation, but the circumstances were different.  And you know, there were consequences.”

 

“There’s always consequences,” she murmurs, scratching softly at his t-shirt.  “I’m angry about what she did to my father.”

 

“You’ve got to let that be between your mother and your father.”

 

“I feel disgusted by her hypocrisy.”

 

“All parents are hypocrites.  They tell you to do as they say, not as they do, in the hopes you’ll be better than they are.  And the children are constantly surprised when they discover their parents are fallible.”

 

She sighs and lifts her head a little higher to turn her face into Mulder’s neck.  He puts his hand on her cheek and runs his fingers through her hair.

 

“I don’t want you to hate your mother,” he says.  “Mothers make mistakes.”

 

“There’s more.”

 

Mulder rubs the shell of her ear between his fingers and waits.

 

**********

 

“It was Mom that was angry with me when I found Frank,” Charlie said.

 

Scully frowned in confusion.  “Why?”

 

“I don’t know.  I thought that’s what she wanted me to do.  I thought that was her intention when she told me.”

 

“What was her intention?”

 

“I don’t know.  Maybe it was simply a need to confess.  When I told her I’d found him, that his story was the same as hers, she screamed at me that I was trying to destroy the family by bringing him into our lives.  She told me as long as I allowed Frank into my life, I was not welcome in hers.”

 

Scully gasped in disbelief.  Her chest ached from the shock and horror of it.  Charlie glanced at her with the expression of one who was no longer affected by the circumstance.  And why wouldn’t he, he’d had twenty years to move on with his life.

 

“She told Bill and then he fought her battles for awhile.  I got the same lectures from him on how I was selfishly trying to ruin the family by seeking out some strange guy I knew nothing about.  He said I was going to confuse my kids by introducing this man into their lives, making them call him Grandpa, and tainting their image of their Grandmother as a whore.”

 

“Jesus.”

 

“That didn’t work, of course.”  Charlie sighed and rubbed his forehead.  “So, Bill told Melissa, but that backfired on him because Melissa thought it was great.  She was supportive of the whole thing.  The weird thing is, she remembered him.  She was only three, I didn’t think it was really possible, but she said she remembered him as Uncle Frank.  Frank confirmed that Missy and Billy used to call him Uncle Frank.” 

 

“You didn’t come to her funeral.”

 

“Bill asked me not to.”  Charlie bit his lower lip for a moment and shook his head.  “I regret that.  I thought it would be less upsetting for Mom if I wasn’t there.  I didn’t hear from Bill again for another five, six years maybe.  Not until after I’d moved to Costa Rica.  He wanted me to know he had a son.  Of course, Matthew was already walking by that time.  So.”

 

Scully’s chin trembled softly.  So many things had happened in her life that her brother had never known.  Bill had laid claim on being the liaison between Charlie and the rest of the family, but his updates were sporadic and vague.  She knew the issue was between Charlie and her mother, but deep down she had wondered if there was something she had done as well.  She'd thought that maybe he’d secretly harbors the same feelings as her father and Bill about the choices she'd made in her life.  How else could she explain why he never showed up when she’d already been read her last rites when she had her cancer?  Why else had he never called when she discovered a daughter she never knew she had?

 

“The only one I never heard from was you,” Charlie said.  “I just assumed you took Mom’s side of the matter and didn’t want to speak to me.”

 

“Why?” she asked.

 

“Out of all of us kids, you hero worshipped Dad on a totally different level.  I just figured you considered what I’d done was disrespectful to Dad’s memory.  Another one of Bill’s arguments everything.”

 

“No, I…”  She blinked and shook her head.  “That didn’t even cross my mind until just now.  And I don’t think that at all.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Have  _ you _ thought that?”

 

Charlie hesitated.  “Mom did.  Bill did.  Melissa didn’t.  Frank hasn’t made me feel that way about it.  I still think of him as Dad.  I feel like he  _ had _ to know that I couldn’t have been his son, but he was still my Dad.  And I never felt like I wasn’t his son.”

 

“I think you've honored Dad’s memory perfectly.”

 

“You know, the irony is, she lied to keep the family together and it wasn't even the truth that broke us apart, it was just her.”

 

Scully nodded dazedly and reached up to touch the chains at her neck.  She fisted the quarter and the cross and began to pull until she felt the chains digging into the back of her neck and she didn't stop.  They both snapped at the same time and she dropped them on the table between her cold coffee and Charlie's cold tea.  

 

“I have to go,” she said, standing and grabbing her blazer from the back of her chair.

 

“Dana…” Charlie stood as well and grabbed her arm.

 

“Please give my love to Jason. I'm so happy for him.  And to Michael.  I would love to see them again.  And you.”

 

Charlie nodded.  “We'll keep in touch this time.”

 

“Yes.”  She moved quickly, stepping past her brother without touching him because she was afraid if she embraced him she would break and never make it out the door.  She managed to make it to her car before the tears fell and headed straight to Mulder.

 

**********

 

Mulder shifts onto his side and pulls Scully against him until their foreheads are pressed together.  “I'm sorry this is happening,” he says.

 

“We've been searching for the truth for twenty-three years, Mulder, and I never imagined the lies were in my own family.”

 

“I know.”  He brushes the back of his hand over her cheek.  She's sure he's the only person in the world who knows how she feels.

 

“She didn't get to tell him she was sorry before she died.”

 

“It sounds like he forgave her a long time ago.”

 

“But, she didn't know that.  What if that's what she was trying to tell us?  That I'll never...in the end I'll never…”

 

“No,” Mulder says, lifting his head above hers and tipping her chin up to look at him.  “Do  _ not _ think that.  Not even for a second.  I know you have regrets, Scully, I know it's been difficult.  I know.  You did the best thing you could possibly do with the best intentions for William.  I'll be brutally honest and say, your mother did not.  She did a horrible thing to Charlie and she should have tried to repair the damage a lot sooner than on her deathbed and I will not let you break yourself over our son.  I won't.”

 

Scully lowers her eyes and the tears threaten to fall again.  As emphatic as Mulder is, he's not going to be able to stop her from feeling the guilt and the pain.  It’s come and gone in waves for years.  The only thing that will ever stop it is being able to see her son again.  Just once.

 

The cell phone in Scully's pocket rings and she tenses in Mulder’s arms.  He fishes it out of her pocket and shows her the screen.  It's Charlie.  She gives a slight shake of her head, but he answers it anyway and puts it on speaker and holds it by her shoulder.

 

“Mulder,” he says.

 

“Uh, Mulder?  Dana’s...I remember hearing about you.  I was looking for Dana.”

 

“She's here.  She's ok.”  Mulder looks down at her and she nods a little with her eyes closed and buries her face against his neck.

 

“I was worried.  I don't know if she told you…”

 

“She told me.”

 

“Ok.  Ok.”  There's a sound of air rushing out of Charlie's lungs in either a sigh of despair or relief, it's hard to tell.  “Can you just tell her that I'm sorry about all this?  I didn't know that she didn't know.  I never would've…”

 

“Charlie I think that you did the right thing by telling her.  Everyone deserves the truth, even when it's not what they want to hear.  It may not seem so right now, but she appreciates the honesty more than any attempts to protect her feelings.”

 

Scully presses her lips to Mulder’s throat and whimpers softly.  She squeezes him around the middle and clutches his shirt.

 

“I have her necklaces,” Charlie says.  “If you could just tell her I’ll hold on to them and to call me when she’s ready.”

 

“Of course.”

 

“Thanks, man.  Um, I know we haven't met or anything, but just so you know, I never believed anything Bill ever said about you.”

 

“Oh I can only imagine what he's had to say about me over the years.”

 

“Ah, well, if you know Bill, he has his own ‘unique perspective’ that he likes to put on things.”

 

“That is one way to put it.”

 

“Ok, um...I’ll be visiting my son in North Carolina for a few weeks, but I'm available any time.  Day or night...I'm available.”

 

“Got it.  She'll call you.”

 

“Thanks.  I appreciate that.”

 

“You're welcome.  Have a safe trip out to your son.”

 

Mulder disconnects the call and leans over to put Scully's phone on the table.  He wraps his arms around her stays quiet.  She didn’t even know how cold she was until he warms her with his embrace.

 

“Can I stay here?” she asks.

 

“You have no choice.  I’m not letting you go.”

 

“Okay.  Don’t let me go.”

 

The End

 


End file.
